Posted
by
BeauHDon Wednesday November 15, 2017 @07:50PM
from the flip-of-a-switch dept.

Yesterday, Mozilla launched Firefox 57 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. It brings massive performance improvements as it incorporates the company's next-generation browser engine called Project Quantum; it also features a visual redesign and support for extensions built using the WebExtension API. Have you used Firefox's new browser? Does it offer enough to make you switch from your tried-and-true browser of choice? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

It updated itself. All my webpages now have more adverts, more pop-up windows, and is probably mining bitcoins in the background. My thought is: It should have been delayed until the more popular addons were ready.

A quite a while back they made the theme so that you cannot you see them, but classic theme restorer fixed that.

Also I do not use any special keyboard shortcuts(except new tab and find) and have most moved to impossible key combinations so they are not accidentally triggered. It is really annoying when you try to paste with ctrl-v and bookmarks pop up and such..

Further:DownThemAllPasslFox - the big showstopper for meNoScript - "but it will be out later today!" only works for so longCustom Tab Width(there are others, but those amount to what has already been mentioned)

Until I can avoid productivity loss due to "yet another UI redesign syndrome" that Mozilla seems completely focused on imposing every other release, I will stay on FF 56.02

a legit 'video downloader' would be nice to have back, too. and not those shams that use a web server to pull the video from youtube or vimeo, etc either, but one that directly downloads the resolution you want and, if a separate file or stream, the audio quality you want and pieces the bits back together if necessary.

Regarding NoScript - I have tried uMatrix as a replacement and so far I like it better because it is easier to use having a reload button right there in the block popup. The only thing I am missing currently is a password exporter/importer so I can backup my passwords to a camera card. I imagine I will find a password manager that can do that at some point thought, there are plenty of those.

They also copied Microsoft Edge's hideously ugly tab design. While they had the good sense to not adopt the now discredited flat UI (who thought that was a good idea to begin with?) they still use the boxy UI object paradigm, even though that has been discredited just the same as flat UI.

I can see them, but I had to change theme from default (light pages, but dark tabs that are black on black), to the "light" theme which looks like I remember except for the square shape and not being as wide as they should be.

How do you see the tabs? I can't see more than 10 tabs properly until I use one of the plugins for vertical tab bar - either Tab Mix Plus, and Tree Style Tab have been working for last few mutilations by Firefox team - but they don't seem to have made it to 57.

1. The core security/privacy functionality is built tightly into the browser by default: HTTPS upgrades, script control, ad blocking, fingerprint protection, etc. No add-ons and depending on third party developers for these vital functions needed.

2. It is the only browser company really doing serious innovation, and that gives it the best chance to actually challenge Google. Plus, how is Mozilla going to challenge Google when it once again depends on Google for almost ALL of its income?

3. Lighting fast and operates in an intuitive UI. I no longer need to mess with all the configurations I had to in Firefox to get it how I wanted it. Brave makes it super easy to toggle things on and off without sorting through an about:config to harden the browser.

How's about Tab Mix Plus? Which will probably *never* be ready, maybe a far less useful version at best.

GreaseMonkey is so radically changed a lot of scripts are likely to break, and authors may have long disappeared or otherwise won't re-write.

Another user mentioned CTR. Entirely disallowed.

DownThemAll lost a lot of functionality.

And we've just covered major addons. What about the hundreds, even thousands, of smaller ones? Yeah, maybe a lot of them could technically be rewritten, if the developer is still around, and is willing to rewrite it, which would often entail having to work with the Firefox devs to get new functionality added in (assuming it's even allowed functionality, a lot won't be). Since that's such a high burden, let's face it, a lot of those smaller addons are dead and never coming back.
Personally I really like Download Manager Tweak for example, but the feature of it I use will not be allowed in WebExtensions, and the author isn't interested in rewriting one with far less functionality.

Not to mention a lot of users who have upgraded have said quite a large number of advanced configuration options have been removed, because part of Chromification is the inexorable march towards stomping on user choice and dumbing things down, which Firefox has already been doing for some time now.
Bottom line is 57 destroys a lot of plugins and plugin functionality that are gone forever. Given that plugin ability is the primary reason a large part of the userbase is still sticking with FF, there's just no way the benefits are worth this loss. Mozilla thinks being more like Chrome with its hostility towards power users will gain them more users than they'll lose, but what incentive is there for someone to switch away from Chrome to an imitator? My money is still on this ultimately being proven a disastrous decision, because I've seen far more existing users who plan to stick to 56 or the ESR as long as possible then dump FF than users that want 57, and can't fathom a reason to expect any kind of new user influx.

The average user doesn't care about tree style tabs, won't notice a performance difference, doesn't know what memory is and doesn't even know Firefox exists. Or Chrome, for that matter. It's just "the icon on the desktop that opens Facebook",

Isn't performance pretty much the *only* thing the average user will notice? (Well, that, and whether or the browser works on Facebook).

Isn't performance pretty much the *only* thing the average user will notice?

No. They won't notice it in this case, because the performance margins between browsers are now so small that you can't notice without something timing things for you, or loading a very intensive (very complex dom or javascript or combo) side by side in FF and some other browser. You're not going to notice if it's faster than chrome if you're not even sure what browser you use.

IMO, this is why MS Edge failed to take off. Who cares about its performance, if it breaks on many sites and, when broken, even offers to show that site in IE instead. If a browser kept telling me to use a different browser, then whatever benefit it may have had to begin with, isn't really worth it cause of that rigmarole.

"Huh, Facebook must be having issues today", as the user exclaims while having 200 tabs open, using 100% RAM and forcing HDD swapping. This is seriously the mindset of the average user. It is the website's fault for poor local performance from bad programming in local applications and/or poor local system management.

I keep hearing this mantra about "OMG no NoScript!". Apparently people don't realize that the script blocker in uBlock Origin is *far* superior to NoScript. It was updated for the new Firefox months ago so, it's had plenty of time to brew. You can thank me later: https://github.com/gorhill/uBl... [github.com]

It already was my tried and true browser of choice but now I needed userChrome.css to make tree tabs look decent. Those massive performance improvements mean fuck all if you live in a far corner of the world.

Newer laptops have been updated (MacPro, Lenovo Win10) but I still need to recompile for my primary desktop (Ubuntu 16.04). Works fine for me. Firefox has been and continues to been my favorite browser.

Well, that seems weird. I use Gentoo and FF 57 was available as a binary.

But on the topic, I only switched from FF to Chromium fairly recently, and there's one simple feature I miss from FF and many other browsers: middle click pasting of the URL anywhere on the page. Having to carefully paste it into the address bar now feels idiotic in the same way that moving windows in Windows requires grabbing by the title bar (apparently, they missed the part of the desktop metaphor where you can move a paper docum

Every recent Firefox update has caused problems with a redesigned GUI. Admittedly up until now I've been able to work around it, but having to work around it is not something I enjoy. If there were a decent alternative I'd use it. Unfortunately, the closest thing I've found to a decent alternative is Konqueror, and that's not great. But if they cripple the bookmarks in the sidebar or make the menubar even more unusable I may be forced to change.

Yes on systems I don't use that much and No on my primary system. I'm waiting for NoScript to finish its WebAssembly port. On the other systems I'm experimenting with uBlock Origin and uMatrix. (I may end up running all three with NoScript and "Allow Scripts Globally" enabled to just take advantage of its ABE, ClearClick and XSS protections, etc... letting uMatrix and uBO do the rest.)

But I'll see if I can live with it. I'll often choose UI stability, but Firefox's UI has not changed too much. If I don't like the changes, I'll go elsewhere. What else can I do? I don't want to use an out of date browser with security issues.

I'm a longtime Firefox user, and I've been annoyed as anyone about the bone-headed UI decisions in past years. But there, at least, you could use add-ons to revert back to a sane user interface, restore the status bar, and the like.

But killing your core, essential feature that makes your product actually worth using over any other browser? Did some cruel time traveller come back in time to ruin Firefox from within or something - I can't see a motivation on the part of those who would do this.

Which is.. to keep using Firefox? Firefox's WebExtensions API offers more [mozilla.org] than Chrome's does [mozilla.org] (see the browser comparison tables). The claims that Firefox is a "Chrome clone" are silly.

uBlock Origin works better [mozillazine.org] in Firefox 57 than possible in Chrome (gorhill [github.com] is the developer of uBlock Origin). Firefox's webRequest API was extended [hackademix.net] for NoScript's use (and it will use it when it gets released in a couple of days [hackademix.net]).

Which is.. to keep using Firefox? Firefox's WebExtensions API offers more [mozilla.org] than Chrome's does [mozilla.org] (see the browser comparison tables). The claims that Firefox is a "Chrome clone" are silly.

uBlock Origin works better [mozillazine.org] in Firefox 57 than possible in Chrome (gorhill [github.com] is the developer of uBlock Origin). Firefox's webRequest API was extended [hackademix.net] for NoScript's use (and it will use it when it gets released in a couple of days [hackademix.net]).

This reminds me of the old Emacs joke posted here. It goes Yeah I love Emacs. It's a great OS it just comes with a shitty text editor.

As a browser webkit beat it a very long time ago regardless of plugins. To me I view Firefox like RealNetworks realplayer or winamp. I heard both are better or were I should say, but who cares this is 2017 the world has moved on. I have not run it many years and neither have my coworkers. My 70 year old father is the only person I am aware of who still uses it.

>"Congrats Firefox dev team! You've made it so much like chrome that there's no longer any reason to use it!"

1) Is not a binary blob2) Is community developed (although sometimes hard to tell)3) Contains no Googleisms and Google tracking4) Far less likely to contain back doors5) Still has more UI control options6) Promotes browser diversity and choice

Had you said "Chromium" instead of "Chrome", that would have helped with a few of the above, but still not really deal with all of it.

Location data to Google's geolocation service: Firefox always asks before determining and sharing your location with a requesting website (for example, if a map website needs your location to provide directions). To determine location, Firefox may use your operating system’s geolocation features, Wi-fi networks, cell phone towers, or IP address, and may send this data to Google's geolocation service, which has its own privacy policy.

and

Webpage and technical data to Google’s SafeBrowsing service: To help protect you from malicious downloads, Firefox sends basic information about unrecognized downloads to Google's SafeBrowsing Service, including the filename and the URL it was downloaded from.

and

On iOS and Android: Firefox by default sends mobile campaign data to Adjust, our analytics vendor, which has its own privacy policy. Mobile campaign data includes a Google advertising ID,...

So don't give us this bullshit about Firefox not containing "Googleisms and Google tracking". Firefox very clearly does use at least two Google services, and using these services involves sending data to Google. And this "Google advertising ID" is clearly an example of a "Googleism" that has found its way into Firefox.

Anyone who claims that Firefox cares about its users' privacy is full of bullshit.

Given how Firefox uses services provided by Google, I don't consider it any better than Chrome. In fact, it may be worse, because clearly some people like you have been fooled into wrongly thinking that Firefox is free from "Googleisms and Google tracking".

So having to tweak a number of CSS files to fix something that the developers broke on purpose in version 29 and still have not fixed to this day. UGH. Really user friendly. No wonder Firefox is losing market share.

If the browser is supposed to be so customizable why is there no UI setting or a direct fix even now more than 3 years after they broke it?

At least with the classic theme restorer you could just install the extension and forget for more than three years that the developers hate the users.

It's fast, but are you seeing problems with it like I am? As an example here on slashdot's Interactive Discussion system (D2), with FF57 I can no longer click on low modded article headers to expand them.

I have a similar problem on Ars Technica forums.

I can adapt to all the other new changes but if FF57 breaks essential functions I'll be moving to chrome in short order.

I am probably in the minority here (this place loves to complain) but I love the update. The new GUI is great once I got used to it and set the Dark Theme, plus it is noticeably faster. As for extensions, most of the ones I use are supported, and the ones that didn't i discovered i either didnt need or had functionality replacements available in the browser now that I didn't realize since never looked.

I'm running the new FF on 3 machines now and it's great so far! I do want NoScript but since so many sites are so horribly broken I've mostly run NoScript permissive. really zero complaints so far. I did wonder what is that weird space between the icons (back/forward/reload/home) and the URL bar. Like if they left justified it then they could show more of the URL.

You can remove that space. Right click on it and select remove from toolbar

Firefox was always my "tried and true browser of choice", but it's been running continuously since before 57 came out so it hasn't updated yet.

When it does I'll lose some extensions I really quite liked, so I'm hanging on to see if they receive updates. I expect the more popular ones will in time, and the more obscure ones I wouldn't be able to replicate by switching browser anyway - so either way I expect to end up on Firefox 57, possibly with some switching to alternate or equivalent extensions in the p

Well I've always been a Firefox user and felt it was getting slow and bloated, but I am loving this update. I did a speed test this morning from www.speed-battle.com and peacekeeper.futuremark.com and Firefox 57 beat out Chrome 62 by quite a margin in most tests.
Now, if Slashdot would change its favicon to use transparent corners instead of white corners, that one tab of mine wont look so funny.

Now, if Slashdot would change its favicon to use transparent corners instead of white corners, that one tab of mine wont look so funny.

Ahaha, that was bugging me too!

I wasn't actually expecting to like this update. I can live with the UI updates, although I'd characterize them as "not much different". Fortunately, the few add-ons I used upgraded seamlessly, and the browser seems pretty snappy.

Overall, I think it's an improvement, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss the annoyance of those who don't like the UI or lost their favorite add-ons.

KeePass works fine and NoScript should be available soon. The one add-on that I use a lot that does not work with it is Capture & Print. I have a workaround, but this add-on did exactly what I wanted with no extra bells or whistles. I'm crossing my fingers that it will be updated as well.

As for Firefox itself, I don't like that they moved the refresh button to the left of the URL. I preferred it on the right. The GUI is now more inline with the Windows 10 UI and other flat minimal style GUIs which I'm now used to. Pages load fine and I haven't had any problems with it yet.

But, normally, I got the next ESR as soon as it hit mozilla servers, and manually installed, without waiting for the update system to offer it to me. The last few months of the life of the ESR was hell, mostly because developers check for the browser, and consider the ESR "Old, insecure and Unsupported" (which is NOT TRUE), so websites throw a lot of warnings and render incorrectly...

This time around, though, I'll hold tight until july 2018 to get it when the dust settles. Too

I've been using Firefox "since it all began" (and Mozilla before then, and Netscape when that was the thing - yes, that's a long time ago). My primary reason for sticking with Firefox through thick and thin was the wide selection of addons, in particular those designed to guard privacy and clean up my web experience.

With the move to webextensions there was little left to distinguish between Firefox and Chrome. My main reservation wrt. Chrome was presumable lack of ability to programmatically control cookie access list (i.e. allow/session only/deny sites ability to set cookies from an extension). Authors of Firefox cookie manager extensions (such as Cookie Controller) stated that doing so is not possible in Chrome.

Finally, I figured I'd give it a try. Less than 20 minutes of searching helped me find an API to control cookies from a Webextension. I wrote my own (and put it up in Chrome "web store" - "Cookie ACL manager"), and we were in business shortly.

While doing that, found a few bugs (not critical but def. needing some attention) in cookie and site data handling. Reported these through Chrome bug reporting site and was positively surprised by developers actually reading and responding (and, hopefully, fixing them soon). By comparison, never got Firefox developers to fix anything.

So - I am sorry Firefox, it's been a good 20 years, but now we must part. Farewell.

While you are trolling, I will respond because I think it makes a good point:)

I suspect that Firefox may support the same API (thought existing addon authors adamantly state it does not). However, if I am to use the same API, I'd rather use it in a faster, more efficient and (due to its popularity) better supported browser. That is to say - whether Firefox supports such an API is irrelevant at this point.

Firefox had a distinctive advantage of a unique flexible design and API access to all aspects of browser implementation. They chose to remove this advantage in favor of standardization. Now there is no longer anything about Firefox that makes it a better choice.

It's fantastic. Long time Chrome user who made the switch, running Nightly for several weeks now. More stable and faster than Chrome ever was. Couldn't be happier. Only use a few plugins (Vimium, Tree Style Tabs, uBlock, etc) so it's been a very painless process to switch.

Apparently the answer according to Slashdot is Mozilla can suck balls no matter what they do. They fix the slowness and now everyone bitches about broken extensions. I get it, everyone is butt hurt about Firefox 3.5 not lasting one hundred millions years. Seriously, FF 57 is faster, extensions, no wait let me correct that, NoScript is coming and it'll be even faster. It doesn't use the abomination that is XUL. But no, the massive tectonic changes that everyone wanted back in 3.5 days, those *finally* g

The Luddites had very good reasons to hate the industrialization that threatened their culture, economy, and way of life. Their opponents were brutal and made inferior textiles with a high human cost. The Luddite rebellion failed, and the horrible treatment of textile workers has continued pretty much unabated to this very day. It's a silly thing to trot out when "progress" has more steps back than forward.

Firefox 57 fixed problems I didn't have and took away things I've used for years. 56 worked well on everything from my i7 gaming rig to my ancient Pentium laptop that shipped with vista and 2 gigs of ram. I kind of wonder if this "57 is fast" stuff is a bunch of benchmark fluff, but it could be I'm just insensitive to browser latency. Stability, now that has been a very real problem in the past. Stability was also flawless on all my machines in 56.

If 57 is delightful for you, cool. Me, I lost extensions that've been part of my daily life, I gained nothing, and I think that's a perfectly damn fine reason to be annoyed with it. Not to mention all the extension developers who got shafted. Feh, Luddite indeed.

In Firefox's favor though, Fakespot on Chrome costs 2 dollars a month for a glorified link opener. What the frak?

Thank you for responding to that idiot better than I could have. Most Firefox users didn't go in that direction for raw speed and a new GUI every frickin' week. In the early days (and yes, I was an early adopter) it worked reasonably well and featured a consistently-increasing number of add-ons that let you turn it into a browser that did exactly what you wanted. At the time, it was really the only choice for people who wanted to customize their web-surfing experience.

Fast forward to now...The only thing that has kept me from dumping Firefox completely (I use Pale Moon mostly, but there's some sites it just won't render properly) is Classic Theme Restorer. Now, apparently, the developer is being given the cold shoulder by Firefox.

So screw 'em. I'll keep my current version for those rare occasions when I need it and use an alternative for everything else. Mostly that will continue to be Pale Moon. When I really care about privacy/security, I don't bother with "Private Browsing" on either of them. I just use Epic.

I tried it. I thought it would be a big improvement with all the hype, but it looks like MS Edge. Unused space next to the home button, it shares data by default (that sucks), has multiple buttons to save a page as favorite (why?), the "Find" toolbar is on the bottom (why?), it still doesn't switch to new tabs by default, and NoScript doesn't seem to work yet. Why do I need an account to use Pocket? Better yet, why is there a help page instructing how to remove the Pocket icon? I would like fewer icons

The account is used to synchronize the links stored in Pocket on one of your devices that runs Pocket with the links stored in Pocket on another of your devices that runs Pocket. How would you recommend that this be accomplished without an account?

I updated and it works.
The for me important plug-ins also work, Tree Style tabs, uBlock origine, the video downloadhelper, Ghostery and the JavaScrypt toggle.
Albeit Tree Style tabs still need a tweak to hide the old tabs, it should be done in a couple of days.

While I do use Chromium on occasion, Firefox has been my "tried and true browser of choice" since it was called Phoenix. I was initially quite annoyed about the deprecation of legacy XUL add-ons, however throughout the FF57 beta period, WebExtensions have popped up to meet just about all of my needs, and the performance improvements have been outstanding. Firefox continues to be the de-facto standard browser for the web. It is an indispensable tool, and a wonderful model for the entire software industry.

I had used only Chrome for quite a few years. Firefox was just too slow. It struggled with simple tasks like scrolling down the page.

But in the last couple of months, two important things happened:- Firefox started working on performance, bringing it in line with Chrome's performance- Firefox added the ability to block auto-play video. *That* won me over.

I have been waiting for it and returned to Firefox with 57. It's nice and speedy now and I prefer it over the other for ideological reasons. Replaced Lastpass with Bitwarden in the process and awaiting NoScript this week.

Apparently I'm one of the very few who doesn't give a damn how tabs look like, where they are, how menus are placed/organised/looks, etc etc. I'm a "heavy duty" browser user but can still work with any modern browser, such as any FF UI we've seen, Vivaldi, chrome, opera without feeling "workflow impaired". I just get to know them and make them work for me. I guess I'm flexible.

Five of the five addons I have installed are marked as Legacy so will not work:( One of them is NoScript, which I know is coming in the next few days, but it's actually the one I care about the least.

The others are:

FireGestures (for gesture controlling - amazing how you get used to this & how much difference it makes to your browsing experience). No update news but from comments it seems it's unlikely to be updated to its former glory due to deficiencies in the new API. There are partial replacements so not too bad.

GreaseMonkey (for modifying webpages on the fly). I mostly use this for minor work enhancements so not critical but it's a really useful tool. I think it's easily replaceable though.

I have maybe 12 other addons that I mostly leave disabled; only two of these have been updated, the others are legacy.

I am really torn; I want to stay up-to-date with Firefox but the reason I use Firefox is that I've customised it to my preferences. If I lose that ability and it's not replaced with something better - the speed is nice but I don't really care about it - then why would I update?

The've been doing this since 2011. Mozilla has been quite content to shed any technical merit they had for almost any reason at all. It all started when they saw Chrome beginning to become successful, and immediately decided to emulate Google's development environment. They adopted Google's rapid release and versioning method on a project that was neither technically nor culturally suited for it. They broke extensions by the truck load with that little gem, and instead of slowing down and letting the extension system catch up, their solution was to write a script that automatically scanned their extensions and just disabled the ones which hadn't caught up yet. Then they went all hell bent on adopting major UI changes that were demonstrably unpopular by the majority of its user base. And if alienating the extensions authors wasn't enough, many of the UI changes destroyed themes on back-to-back-to-back releases. It reminds me of one of my country's more famous prime ministers who, when he realized he'd alienated half my country, proceeded to give them the finger from his seat on a train. That's Mozilla. They alienate users, and then the ones who have stayed loyal they give the finger to.

All of this was in an attempt at emulating Chrome's burgeoning success. The problem is, they never figured out... you simply cannot surpass someone else by playing copycat on their methods. All they did was alienate their existing user base in favour of a product that could never be quite as good at being Chrome as Chrome was.

Mozilla had a great browser, and a great community. Someone spooked at Chrome's early success and decided that change for change's sake was necessary, and they have resisted every indication that they have made a mistake.

I recommend PaleMoon for a fantastic experience that is the best of what Firefox was in combination with innovation that makes sense and which takes into account its user base. It was originally a patch on an earlier FF ESR, they have since essentially departed from Firefox, though they still borrow some bits when it makes sense to do so. It's what Firefox should have been if they hadn't taken the detour into crazy six years ago.